Kvinnor och deras karriäravancemang på managementkonsultföretag - en fallstudie om varför det är svårare för kvinnor att avancera på managementkonsultföretag

Sammanfattning: The purpose of the thesis is to examine why women face greater difficulties than men in the management consulting industry when advancing as well as to identify potential success factors that enable women to overcome the existing difficulties. In order to fulfil the purpose, a theoretical framework including gender and organisational theory has been applied to a qualitative case study of two Swedish management consulting firms. A number of difficulties have been identified related to women's career advancement, which are the following: the male leader and the stereotypical male leadership, firms having higher expectations on women's performance, women's reluctance to self-promotion and to play "the organizational game", women's preference of social networks, men's tendency to promote other men, and the choice and conflict between a career and family life. The identified success factors that enable women to overcome these difficulties are: adapting the male leadership style, having an extrovert behaviour, becoming more active in professional networks, promoting one self, actively seeking to gain more attention, and prioritising one's career. These success factors can be summarised as women adapting a more male-like behaviour. These results imply that the difficulties are all effects of socially constructed gender roles. The difficulties are created due to the fact that the firms foster the socially constructed male gender role. The solution of adapting a more male-like behaviour is only short-term as it only enhances the existing preference for the male gender role and its attributes. Since these difficulties are effects of socially constructed gender roles in combination with the firms fostering the male gender role, it implies that the measures the firms have taken in the past to solve the issues have only treated the symptoms and not the root cause. This is important to highlight in order for firms to be able to take the right measures and treat the root cause of the existing difficulties women face in their advancement at management consulting firms in the coming future.